Tech Notes

This feed is going away!

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 22:15:42 MST

I'm consolidating this feed with my other hacking-related feeds. From now on, all information that would normally appear in this feed can be accessed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/nowheremanhacks

RSSSync 0.2 Released

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 21:27:21 MST

New in 0.2
- Sync to an OPML file on the Mac

SyncDates 0.3.2 Released

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 15:48:35 MST

New in 0.3.2
- Fixed compatibility issues with Tiger and iCal 2

This patch should only be installed if you are running nSync with Tiger and iCal 2.

ToDoSync 0.4 Released

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 13:35:43 MST

New in 0.4
- Compatibility with Tiger and iCal 2

Newtie Awards

Sun, 23 Jan 2005 21:56:16 MST

Wow! I'm flattered. Not only has NewtSync been nominated for a Newtie, but it is in second place for best software update. And, as if that wasn't enough, I have been nominated for Newtonian of the year.

Power Dongle

Mon, 20 Dec 2004 11:00:16 MST

Over the weekend, I soldered the serial port back onto my "power dongle" and it worked. So I now have a Newton dongle with serial, line-in, and line-out. All I have to do is package it up nice and take some pictures for y'all.

Dongle Adventures

Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:00:16 MST

I amaze myself. I actually got my serial dongle apart without killing it or myself in the process. That was a hard part of the process. An hour after the dongle was apart, I had an RCA plug bread boarded to my Newton's line out. Now all I have to do is add line in, rewire the serial jack, and figure a semi-pretty way to package it all up and I'll have a pretty cool Newton accessory.

newtsync.com

Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:00:16 MST

I just bought newtsync.com and as soon as godaddy gets the forwarding set up, you will be able to access the nSync site via that URL instead of the big long mess that it takes now.

A Dockable Newton?

Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:00:16 MST

I am not much of a hardware guy, but I am reasonably skilled with a wire wrap tool. I always thought it would be cool if my Newton had a line out jack so I could use it to play internet radio through my home stereo via MadMax. The problem is that it is impossible to find an interconnect port connector. The next option, albeit not a very attractive one, is to disassemble my serial dongle to get access to all the other features of the interconnect port. So last night, that is what I began doing. Good lord, those things are well put together. It's a slow process extracting the connector. The ultimate goal at this point, since I have but one connector and there most likely won't be another, is to build a Newton dock. One box that tethers to the Newton and has a serial port, line in, line out, and maybe a few other goodies. Assuming I don't render the connector inoperable in the process of disengaging it from my dongle.

BlueTooth

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 14:00:16 MST

My PICO BlueTooth card showed up yesterday. I haven't had much time to play with it yet since I had planned to spend the evening watching the meteor shower. But I did take enough time to pair it with my PowerBook and do a few basic things to prove it works. Blunt is some really cool stuff. nSync over BT? Not any time soon, but I now have the hardware to make an attempt.

iCal 1.5.5

Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:00:16 MST

On the heels of iCal 1.5.4, Apple released iCal 1.5.5 today. This, of course, will render nSync's date syncing useless. I think the original reason John put the version check in there was to make sure the AppleScript calls that nSync makes to iCal would not become obsolete and stop working unexpectedly with an iCal update. I'm thinking it might be worth it to just take that check out. Either way, there will be an nSync update tonight to fix iCal compatibility. A few other minor tweaks will be included too. The odd thing is that the nSync version won't be reved, since the app itself hasn't chenged. Just the plugins have been modified, so their versions will be bumped. Slightly confusing, I know, but I do configuration management for a living, so I get fanatical about these details.

NPDS Scripting

Sun, 12 Dec 2004 11:00:16 MST

I got ambitious this weekend and decided to try my hand at writing an NPDS script. I came up with a cool little hack that generates a web page displaying all of the feeds I have stored in Raissa. So far it just displays the feed titles and a link to the original RSS. But it could be made to display the actual content without much more work. Check it out

Syncing multiple calendars

Sun, 12 Dec 2004 10:57:58 MST

I got a request the other day for nSync to be able to sync multiple iCal calendars with the Newt. At first glance it seemed easy enough, but when I sat down and started thinking about it, it's not an easy thing to make happen.

Moving the information from multiple calendars to the Newt is not a problem. But when you try to go the other direction and sync back from the Newt to the Mac, it gets messy. Because, the Newton does not give you the option of filing meetings and events in different folders. And, even if it did, who is to say that your Newton folders match up with your iCal calendars.

Suppose you have three iCal calendars A, B, and C. And you want nSync to sync them all with the Newton. First, move all the info from the three calendars into the Newton. No problem. Now, suppose you modify one of the meetings on the Newton. When you sync again, there is no way for nSync to know which iCal calendar the modified meeting belongs to. It could be made to make an educated guess, but it would not be very reliable, me thinks. Back to the drawing board.

Improving Address Syncing

Thu, 9 Dec 2004 15:11:08 MST

9 DEC 2004

Address and Date syncing are probably the two pieces of nSync that need the most work. And they happen to be the two pieces that I am least interested in working on. Why? I don't use my Newton for names and dates. I use iPod for that. I use Newton for Notes, RSS, email, etc. But Improvements are slowly coming to name and date syncing. I have already fixed a few minor issues with address syncing for the next version. There is currently a bug that will cause nSync to crash if it trys to sync an address book entry whose note field contains more than about 400 characters. For now, I'm fixing that by simply skipping those large notes. Some of the other bad behavior with address syncing should be resolved by a step backward. I'm getting rid of the multiple Newton syncing. It was a fun experiment, but seems to have cause more problems than it solved. So addresses are back to a single sync date, like all the other plugins. These changes and hopefully some more will be in the next release of nSync. Whenever that may be.

Source now available for download

Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:11:08 MST

29 NOV 2004

The nSync source is now available for download from the website. I had been sending it out by request, but hopefully posting it will encourage people to explore it and maybe improve it.

nSync 0.3.3, RSSSync 0.1.1 Released

Thu, 25 Nov 2004 02:11:08 MST

25 NOV 2004

These two new items bring RSS syncing to the Newton. This initial attempt supports syncing between NetNewsWire on the Mac and Raissa on the Newt. Other RSS apps can be added later if there is a demand.

nSync over BlueTooth?

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 20:11:08 MST

22 NOV 2004

A couple of users have emailed me asking if it could be possible to use nSync over a BlueTooth connection. One of them has gone so far as to buy me a BT card for my Newt for development purposes.

I assume it would be doable, in theory, but I've never fooled around with BT on the Newt. Thanks to Blunt the Newton is able to communicate via BT, but the question is how hard will it be to get nSync to take advantage of that. Time will tell.

RSSSync

Wed, 17 Nov 2004 23:49:34 MST

17 NOV 2004

I sat down and started work on RSSSync tonight. Of course, I did the easy part first, syncing from the Newton to the Mac. I have it to the point that it is successfully stepping through the Raissa feeds on the Newt and adding them to NetNewsWire if they aren't already there. Pretty slick stuff actually.

Now comes the fun part. Syncing from the Mac back to the Newton. Basically, what it has to do, is accumulate the existing Newt feeds as it steps through them, then step through the NNW feeds checking to see whether or not each one is in the Newton yet. Adding feeds to the Newton will require a change to nSync proper, so there will have to be an nSync 0.3.3 to go along with the release of RSSSync. I don't want to throw too many updates at users too fast, but there is significant progress being made.

Reviving the RSS

Wed, 17 Nov 2004 23:42:28 MST

Being able to send notes larger than ~400 char to the Newt took a bit of NewtonScripting, something I know very little about. Now that I've been successful at that, I think it's time to turn my attention to a plugin that will require a slightly more complex bit of NS. RSSSync was suggested a long while back and I never got around to doing it. So I'm going to make it my next nSync related adventure. A plugin to sync feed URLs between Raissa and NetNewsWire. Stay tuned for updates on my progress.